The muscles of both hind- and fore-legs were not very thick; but across her shoulders the mare was exceptionally broad, a peculiarity specially striking now that she was lean from training.
The bones of her legs below the knees looked no thicker than a finger from in front, but were extraordinarily thick seen from the side.
She looked altogether, except across the shoulders, as it were, pinched in at the sides and pressed out in depth.
But she had in the highest degree the quality that makes all defects forgotten: that quality was _blood_, the blood _that tells_, as the English expression has it.
The muscles stood up sharply under the network of sinews, covered with the delicate, mobile skin, soft as satin, and they were hard as bone.